Doctor Roswell

According to Zwillinger in another thread....

ME3 is, what, March 6th? So... yeah, maybe.

This was pretty much my thinking.

I kind of like that they're only available with non-alignment merits; it makes the grey alignments a little more attractive (or "less unattractive," at least) than they were before. Creates a reason to go rogue/vig and actually stay there instead of just using it as a bridge between red and blue.

In answer to your first question, the note system is great and all, and I use it like crazy myself, but outside of forum regulars, I doubt most players are even aware of it... and most of the ones that are probably don't make regular use of it. And chances are, that second part wouldn't change much even if the first part did. Which dovetails nicely into my answer to your second question.

Reality should dictate game development, at least as much as other factors like the dev team's vision or the players' desires. The way people would use a feature has to take precedence over the way people should use a feature. Idealism is a wonderful thing, but it can only take you so far before realism has to step in, slap it across the face, and yell, "snap out of it!"

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."

As would I. I like my knockback, thankyouverymuch, and I use it pretty well, if I do say so myself. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let anybody tell me I can't have it because someone else used theirs badly. /CharltonHeston

You're not. I'm not either. But some people would be, especially if solving the non-existent "problem" were as simple as clicking a toggle that they knew everyone with knockback had by default. An un-restrained blaster wouldn't be treated like a tank without Taunt, or like a Kinetics defender without Speed Boost -- even someone who used knockback extremely well would be treated by some like a stalker who refused to Hide. Would you kick a stalker for not using Hide? Even if you wouldn't, don't you think there are more than a few people who might?

And with some powers, knockback is almost or entirely the reason to even have the power at all. Repel? Gale? Power Thrust? Those last two are tier one powers that anyone taking their set as a secondary has to take. So they should also get a toggle that basically shuts the power off, but still lets them waste time (and endurance?) doing the animation for it?

Sorry, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but the only "solution" to knockback issues I can get behind is a combination of players learning to use it well and other players learning to deal with a little chaos on the battlefield.

They have to start as villains; after that they're like any other character. So, level 20, then do tips or buy an alignment change.

"Better" and "more fun" are a matter of taste. If AoEs are your main concern, go with a Soldier, then make him a Crab Spider at level 24 (before that you'll basically just be a guy with an assault rifle, some grenades, Leadership-style buffs, and a dream). At that point it can be all grenades and flailing laser-shooting spider-legs if you want.

To a point, they also made more sense when Freedom launched than they do now. With Exalted opening up, plus the possibility of an old player returning to the game to find his friends on a different server, or his old server much quieter the he remembered, being able to say, "hey, subscribe and you can start moving characters for 'free'" was a pretty decent carrot to dangle.

Months later, it's probably safe to say the huge rush of Exalted transfers and returning players has slowed to a steady trickle, so they're less useful, and to fewer people. Another reason to go back and look at it again, I guess.

On the very rare instances I actually do ignore someone, I like to do this too, for the same reasons (though most of the time I actually do ignore the person... five minutes or so after I announce that I'm going to).

A few weeks ago I actually caught hell for it from the zone. "I'm going to ignore you as a spammer for clogging up the chat with useless posts about who you're ignoring, just ignore him and shut up" kinds of things. Couldn't believe it.

Sort of -- I'd call it "iridescent," like a soap bubble or abalone shell, but it's "rainbow" in the sense that there are many colors mingling. There's also a path aura you can unlock with incarnate merits that gives a more literal "rainbow" effect with multiple streaks of individual colors. And yes, either works with Ninja Run.

No way would I want these instead of points. I can use the points on anything I want, even if they only cover part of the cost.

Alignment changes instead of server transfers, I like better... problem is, while I do indeed have five transfers just sitting there untouched, no plans to use one in the foreseeable future, and another coming next week, I also have two that I have used. I use the things, just... not all of them. I have too many for them to do me any good. And I think I'd get about the same amount of use out of free side-switching. If alignment changes flat-out replaced server transfers, I'd probably love it and hate it in equal amounts, depending on which of the two services I wanted to use right then.

I wonder if there would be a way to offer a choice, though; replace free server transfers with a more-inclusive "account service" token that could be used for a variety of features that don't really "add" anything to the account or the characters so much as they move existing things around -- server transfers or alignment changes (and maybe character renames could be rolled into it as well). If they were versatile enough, it might even be okay to reduce them to a bi-monthly offering instead of a monthly one.... I bet the vast majority of VIPs would be okay (even thrilled) with seeing their twelve annual server transfers replaced with six annual transfers/side-switches/renames they could pick and choose as they wanted.

That's... awesome, actually, and I'll definitely use it.

But it's my understanding that Granite Armor works like Kheldian forms: It isn't a "power effect," it literally replaces your character's model with another. So I doubt it will work in this specific case.

Still... I'll use this.

Doubtful.

Thanks for clearing it all up!

I'm not much of a badger and don't have a strong opinion one way or another, but I kind of lean toward what I thought was the current policy regarding the sale of badges on the market, which is to say, no. Not that I personally would mind, but I worry about the conclusions people would draw from that, namely that every costume pack from now until the end of time would have a new badge in it that you could only get by buying the full package, thus "forcing" badgers to buy everything. The hostility would only be worse coupled with the current trend of making so many items available only for a limited time. And that's assuming the people drawing those conclusions were wrong. If they were right... you'd a have a pretty serious mess on your hands.

So for that reason, I vote "sell the stuff you already sell -- costume items and powers -- but not badges." Toss them up there as individual items and not as a package deal to save on the confusion, badge-wise.

Or, you know, just strip out the foot-glow and sell the Slide au natruale. I already have the glowy version, and I'd still be willing to pay a little (a little, like two or three bucks -- it's just Sprint, after all) for a plain one.

Technically, you're right. But the grammar nerd in me feels the need to point out that in that case, they should all be "Prestige Power: Slide," "Prestige Power: Rush," and so on (note the colon). But this does lead me to another idea on the "compromise" front. One that's a little... awesomer.


POWERSLIDE!!!